Gideon was an angel with a bad attitude. He had been friends with Lucifer and had watched him fall. Now he lived somewhere between the dark and the light, with a hunger for the blood of man, a hunger that was a punishment put upon him by the angel Michael. His brother-angel Gabriel had ensured that Gideon had a chance for redemption, but Gideon was a very angry angel. He held Gabriel in some way accountable for his punishment. He felt a need to hurt Gabriel, and he knew of only one way to do it. Through Naomi.

Eighteen years before, a woman had gone to the Calvary Chapel at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, had handed a baby over to Gabriel and died. Gabriel had raised Naomi. She secretly scribed for the monks in spite of their attitude toward women. She had been illuminating a manuscript when Gideon happened upon her. He had tasted her blood, the blood of an innocent, and it had affected him. He wanted to use her to hurt Gabriel too, but her nature was pure of heart, selfless, devoted and true. He could taste that in her. The darkness in him hungered for her, but his goodness reached out for her as well. He battled inside himself, fighting a double hunger for her blood as well as her body. His banishment from the light was supposed to teach him the sacrifices humans make for each other-- their tenderness, loyalty, courage and honor. He was supposed to learn how to love. But all he had learned was ruthlessness, deceit, lust and covetousness.

Naomi had never known that Gabriel was an angel, and finding out shocked her. But after she got over her shock that he had hidden from her something so important as his being an angel, he explained that she could be the path to Gideon's redemption, because of all of the people in the world, Gideon was only reaching out to her. Then she found out that she wasn't alone in the world after all. She had a family; the monks expected her to either take vows or leave. For the first time in her life, she had somewhere to go. She had decisions to make.

Cindi Friberg has written an out of the ordinary story incorporating characters and mythology from the Bible and vampire folklore--not the prosaic of combinations. Normally I would run very far very fast from a book that claimed a Biblical connection just to avoid something preachy. However, BORN OF THE SHADOWS is not preachy at all, but clever, and unusual and creative. The characters are sympathetic, and though the sacrifice/redemption theme may be fairly common to the Vampire genre, this story is original and uncommon. An excellent read.
Reviewed By: Allie B
© 2004